Canaries are active, cheerful, and beautiful and have a delightfully lovely song! They are colorful and have pleasing personalities. There is nothing like a peaceful, pretty canary song to unravel nerves at the end of the day.John Scott Haldane was known as “the father of oxygen therapy”. He researched in dangerous self-experiments by breathing several toxic gases, and pronounced carbon monoxide as the cause of death in depths, which led him to recommend using the birds for detection. He suggested using a sentinel species: an animal more sensitive to the colorless, odorless carbon monoxide and other poisonous gases than humans.Why was a canary Haldane’s suggested solution? Canaries are good early detectors of carbon monoxide because they’re vulnerable to airborne poisons. Because they need such immense quantities of oxygen to enable them to fly and fly to heights that would make people altitude sick, their anatomy allows them to get a dose of oxygen when they inhale and another when they exhale, by holding air in extra air sacs stored in other parts of their body, due to which they get a double dose of air … and any poisons the air might contain. If the canary became ill, fell of its perch or died, it would be the miners warning to evacuate.Carbon monoxide is a potentially deadly gas devoid of color, taste or smell, which can form underground during a mine fire or after a mine explosion. Today's coal miners must rely on carbon monoxide detectors and monitors to recognize its presence underground. The mixture of gases that remain in a mine following a mine fire or explosion usually consists principally of carbonic acid gas and nitrogen, which is toxic when inhaled. More sensitive to such gases than humans, the little bird would collapse and fall off its perch long before the miners were affected; the poor little birds plight was therefore a signal to the miners to get out immediately, and to management to look at the problem and clean up the mine.If we think of the workforce, in our case the flight crew, as “test canaries”, the typical reactions of managements is interesting: They don't say 'we've got a problem here, let's fix it before we have a disaster', but start bad-mouthing the canaries by more or less hidden diffamation of character. It has a personality disorder, they say, or, it is faking it; it was sick before it went down the mine, or in our case: up in the air; or - more simply – it is a troublemaker.Just as the victimization that causes the canary to fall of its perch is standard from one organization, state and country to another, so are the managements’ explanations for the canary's state of mental and physical health. And remembering what the canary's state really means to the mine and those in it, the response is not at all what we would expect from managers and company CEO’s who care about their workers. The reaction to the canary is representative of the industry’s response as a whole. Typically the response is orchestrated, hostile and powerful: a bullying per se.

It was reported in 2003 that a British officer acted as a "human canary" during the first enemy missile attack of the Iraq war because the troops did not have enough batteries for their chemical agent monitors; defence sources were quoted: "He had to go out of the tent and stand there.", one source said. "The thinking was that if he fell over there were probably chemical agents around."

The Airline Industry's Canaries So logically in our case, if it’s not the pilots, it’s the cabin crews that : “... if they fall over, one can assume that chemical agents are around”. However, such thinking seems to elude the aviation industry - at least regarding any levels of toxic substances that are not on some sort of ‚legal limit’ list, and they are in complete denial regarding the dangers of ‚double doses’ and continued, regular inhalation of minimal amounts.I have spoken at length about this dangerous and health hazardous ‚phenomena’ in my book ‚The Air I Breathe-It’s Classified’ which is available on Amazon worldwide, so I won’t go in to great technical and scientific details regarding the ill-health source in this one.

This book is dedicated to sharing the simplest way of how to survive and improve one’s health after the nervous system injury by inhalation of toxins/ nerve gas. This is a nervous system injury which often results in ‚diffuse toxic encephalopathy’ and/or (organophosphate induced delayed) neuropathy and the so called Aerotoxic Syndrome.I want to give you some advice on how to regain your health in ways that don’t cost an arm and a leg - just some willpower and dedication from your good self. Or, as a precaution to protect and strengthen the immune system as good as you can, to hopefully avoid such health issues. But be aware: there is no guarantee, every flight still is: a Russian Roulette.

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After becoming unfit to fly and being medically 'retired' Bearnairdine became involved in scientific research for the campaign 'improve the quality of aircraft cabin air' and the helping of victims to understand their ill-health; coming from a medical background she is also a health consultant & educator with over 25 years professional and personal experience ; she is a published author of three books in two languages and the founder of the " AEROTOXIC TEAM" and 'Global Aerotoxicteam', educational website and socialmedia pages. She not only became unfit to fly, but also unable to work in her former profession due to her severe central nervous system injury; she receives a small disabilty allowance and is still fighting to receive her workplace related ill-health pension. She lives in a beautiful, but secluded area of the Swiss alps and continues to support the aerotoxic campaign via computer and telephone. She is available for media inquiries.